Apr 13, 2015

End-Times Buffoonery

Politics and religion all too often assume odd and distorted forms in
America. The United States has long been the home of a wide assortment
of bizarre and eccentric sects and cults, most being harmless, or at
least lacking the ability to do any serious harm outside of their
immediate proximity without large-scale followings nor serious political
access. But there are always exceptions, and one of the more prominent
and influential ones is the highly-politicized and well-funded
Dispensationalist movement, a vocal and well-represented faction among
fundamentalist Protestants. Not only do Dispensationalists have a large
scale following, but they also manage to wield considerable influence in
Washington, especially on US foreign policy.

The relationship between fundamentalist Protestant eschatology of the
Dispensationalist variety and America’s geopolitical agenda can be
clearly seen in the figure of Hal Lindsey. In the early 1970’s he
published a book, The Late Great Planet Earth,
which proved a bestseller among fundamentalist Protestants. Scrawled
during the height of the Cold War, Lindsey’s work proposed that Soviet
Russia was the sinister entity known as Gog spoken about by the Hebrew
prophet Ezekiel, and that it would soon invade Israel, thus bringing
about Armageddon. Lindsey was not an isolated figure by any means; a
film based on his book – narrated by none other than Orson Welles – was
made, and his admirers included Ronald Reagan, who cited Lindsey’s
teachings on Russia as Gog in a speech prior to becoming president.

Lindsey’s eschatology served to provide a Manichean, religious veneer
to America’s Cold War against communist Russia. It conveniently
serviced Washington’s geopolitical ends, as well as casting all of
Israel’s Arab opponents as agents of sinister supernatural forces.
America and Israel were the Sons of Light, while their adversaries were
the Sons of Darkness. As such, Protestant fundamentalists found ample
theological justification to support Euro-Atlantic elites’ drive for
global hegemony. Indeed, the late American intellectual Gore Vidal
whimsically observed
that the practical result of this Dispensationalist theology was a
“military buildup that can never, ever cease until we have done battle
for the Lord.”

With his end-of-the world predictions long unfulfilled, Hal Lindsey
has long since faded into relative obscurity, yet others have
ambitiously taken up his mantle. Among the most prominent of the current
crop of evangelical Christian Zionists stands John Hagee, the pastor of
a Texas mega-church and founder of the lobbying group Christians United
for Israel. His theological platform is based not only on uncritical,
unwavering support for the nation-state of Israel, but a belief
that at some point in the near future Russia, in an alliance with
several Islamic countries, particularly Iran, will attack Israel, only
to be defeated by God’s divine intervention.

Read the rest of this article at - http://souloftheeast.org/2015/04/10/end-times-buffoonery/